ADDRESS 



BY 



HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE, 



U. S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS, 



UNDER THE AUSPICES OF 



THE UNION LEAGUE, 



AT 



The Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 



OCTOBER I, 1900. 



ADDRESS. 



ADDRESS 



BY 



HON, HENRY CABOT LODGE. 

U. S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS, 



UNDER THE AUSPICES OF 






• ■■••• 



THE UNION LEAGUE, 



AT 



The Academy of Music, Philadelphia, 



OCTOBER I, 1900. 






"f. 



a\;ClL.^^v*l.J^' 



ADDRESS, 



President Darlington: 

Ladies and gentlemen, one of the most encouraging signs of 
the times is the deeper interest which the women of our land 
are taking in public and national affairs. (Applause.) I cannot 
confess to be a very ardent admirer of that new type of woman- 
hood styled " the modern woman," but I am a very enthusiastic 
admirer of the woman who makes herself familiar with affairs 
which affect the welfare, the prosperity and the honor of her 
country. (Applause.) Possessed of an inherent power which 
she scarcely realizes, and which we fail to fully appreciate, if she 
will make herself familiar with public and national affairs, so 
that she can converse on them intelligently and with understand- 
ing, she wields a power and an influence which creates public 
thought and indirectly suggests wise legislation. Her presence 
at a meeting of this character is elevating, inspiring and in every 
way to be desired. In the name of The Union League of Phil- 
adelphia, I most heartily welcome the women who honor us by 
their presence this evening. (Applause.) 

In pursuance of a duty and an obligation, not only to the peo- 
ple of Philadelphia, but to the great ReiJublican party, with 

5 



6 

which we are associated, this meeting has been called for the 
purpose of presenting for your consideration matters of national 
importance, regarding which there is much ignorance, much 
misunderstanding, but withal a very earnest desire for infor- 
mation. Among all the brilliant and gifted men who to-day 
are recognized as statesmen of the highest order, I know of no 
man more familiar with every event of recent occurrence, and 
in every way qualified to speak to us, than is the distinguished 
Senator from Massachusetts. (Cheers.) Personally familiar 
with every event of our national history in recent years, a gen- 
tleman of profound learning, a man of careful and close observa- 
tion, an intelligent, wise and patriotic statesman, whose voice is 
always heard in the highest legislative hall of the land in ad- 
vocacy of every measure which tends to maintain the national 
honor and secure the prosperity of every section of our country, 
and possessing the power and ability to impart intelligently and 
clearly the knowledge which he possesses, it is with very great 
pleasure that I present to you the Honorable Henry Cabot 
Lodge. 

Senator Lodge : 

Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, I gather from the cor- 
dial reception which you have been kind enough to accord me 
that there are more Republicans in this good old city than in one 
which I recently visited, and where I did not have the privilege 
of speaking. (Laughter.) There do not seem to be as many 
persons in this audience interested in "16 to 1 " as in some 
audiences I have seen. 

There is one difficulty that I have found in this campaign, 
and that is to exactly define our opponents. It is customary to 



refer to them as Democrats. I think this is very unfair to the 
Democratic party. (Laughter.) The Democratic party has had 
a long history, and has been a great party. I have differed, I 
think, historically and practically, with almost all its beliefs and 
policies, but nevertheless it has had a great past and a great his- 
tory. Among other things, it has been in the past the party of 
expansion, and the addition which it has made to our national 
territory is the greatest monument which it has raised. (Ap- 
plause.) It was also, many years ago, the party of hard money, 
" the money of the Constitution." It has slipped away from 
that a good deal. (Laughter.) 

Ever since the war the Democratic party has fallen into the 
unfortunate habit of bidding for the support of any detachment 
of Republicans who were dissatisfied, or any third party who 
happened to be around — with one exception. I do not think they 
ever appealed to the Prohibition party. (Laughter.) 

You will remember that, after the war, they went in for pay- 
ing bonds in paper. Then they went after the Greenback party, 
and for a time they were all Greenbackers. One of them still 
survives in the person of their present candidate for Vice-Presi- 
dent. (Laughter.) Then they went after the Silver party. 
That was their most unfortunate expedition, for the Silver party 
swallowed them, and now they are running after the Anti-Im- 
perialists, the smallest party they have ever hunted, I think. 
(Laughter). 

Therefore I think it is only fair to the party that has been 
(and I say it with all seriousness) a great party, with a past of 
great traditions — I think it is only fair not to use their name in 
describing the present aggregation. I prefer to refer to Mr. 
Bryan as the candidate of the mixed tickets. You will remem- 



ber that Mr. Bryan, in his anxiety about one man power, and 
the coming of imperialism in the United States, after he had re- 
luctantly caused himself to be nominated at Kansas City, pro- 
ceeded further in his great care to prepare a platform for them ; 
and he not only did that, but he selected the issue which the 
American people were to discuss, and he called it paramount. 
It was said at the time that it was received with wild cheering 
by the Convention. I dare say a good many of them felt like 
the old lady who liked to hear the word " Mesopotamia " men- 
tioned. She did not know where it was or what it was, but she 
liked the sound of the word ; but I think, with a good many 
among the more intelligent of the thinkers who constituted that 
gathering, that the word awakened a great many tender recollec- 
tions. Let me explain what I mean. Some years ago Presi- 
dent Harrison sent into the Senate a treaty annexing the Ha- 
waiian Islands to the United States. Then he went out of power, 
and his successor, Mr. Cleveland, withdrew the treaty. He 
wasn't satisfied with that. He sent out a commissioner to Hawaii 
to take down the flag, which somebody had incautiously raised 
there, and he called the commissioner " Paramount. " Well, the 
commissioner went out, and he took down the flag, and he came 
back, and he went into retirement, and he is still there — " the 
world forgetting, by the world forgot" — and by the time we have 
come to the end of this campaign, we will relegate the " para- 
mount issue " to the same obscurity as that now enjoyed by the 
" Paramount Commissioner." 

But, as Mr. Bryan says this is the paramount issue, I am only 
too delighted to discuss it. I wish there was no other issue, 
at least in the West. If there was no other issue in the 
West, we should sweep every State high and dry; but out 



there some of them seem to think that the paramount issue 
is 16 to 1. 

Let us discuss it, however, as Mr. Bryan puts it forward. He 
broke his silence again yesterday and talked about it, and it is 
worth while to consider what he says. By imperialism, as I un- 
derstand it, he means the conversion of the United States into 
an empire, through the medium of the Philippine Islands. 
(Laughter.) We are not going to be converted into an empire 
by Puerto Rico, which we took in exactly the same way, but by 
the Philippines. 

Now, how did we come by the Philippine Islands ? We got 
into a war with Spain. If I remember rightly, all the Demo- 
crats in Congress voted for that war, and were at some pains to 
try to find fault with the President for what they considered 
his needless delay. We entered on the war with Spain, and the 
President, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, was 
charged with the duty of conducting that war. It was of course 
the obvious military measure to attack the Spaniards wherever 
we could, and we did so in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philip- 
pines. 

They had a fleet in the Philippines. We had one at Hong 
Kong, and the President sent word to Admiral Dewey to find 
out the Spanish fleet and fight it. That was a good military 
measure. Nobody found fault with it then. All these wise 
criticisms we have heard since were not heard then. So Dewey 
went to Manila ; he found the Spanish fleet and he destroyed it, 
and he took possession of Manila. A good many people have 
since said that they wished he had sailed away then. Well, 
there were two objections to that. In the first place, he had no- 
where to go. He was seven thousand miles from home, and all 



10 

the other places were shut up. He had no harbor, no coal pile, 
no anchorage, except that which he had thoughtfully provided 
for himself in Manila. 

The other objection was that nobody at that time— none of 
these wise men— suggested for a moment that he should go 
away. On the contrary, I remember very well in the Senate 
that when I suggested, as I did on the floor, that the delay made 
by the Democratic party in annexing Hawaii tended to hinder 
sending relief to Dewey, they resented it, and they went further. 
They criticised the Administration for delays in sendmg troops. 
We sent the troops, and Manila fell before the signing of the 
protocol was known in the East. 

Then came the negotiations in Paris. What should be done 
with the Philippines? Spanish sovereignty was gone. Ours 
was the only sovereignty that existed in those islands. We 
were the only barrier between those islands and absolute 
anarchy. Our troops were all that stood between that great city 
and the horde of insurrectionists outside the wall. What, under 
those circumstances, should we do ? 

Should we give them back to Spain? Nobody suggested 
that. Aguinaldo, Agoncillo, and the rest of them were begging 
that we should not hand them back to Spain. There was no 
man, no American, who suggested that we should turn these 
people over to a tyranny from which we had just rescued them. 
That door was closed. 

Should we hand them over to some other power, and say, 
" We have got this on our hands. It is too big a job for us. 
Won't you kindly undertake it?" Well, there seemed to be too 
much self-respect m the American people for that. Nobody 
sucrsested it, at all events. 



The other alternative was to hand it all over to Aguinaldo — 
Aguinaldo, the Chinese half-breed, at the head of a motley force 
of some ten thousand men, gathered entirely from other Chinese 
half-breeds, and from the Tagal tribe. He did not represent a 
nation. He represented nobody but himself. There was no 
Filipino nation, and there never has been. Those islands stretch 
over the ocean for a thousand miles. They are utterly separated 
geographically. There are eighty-three diiferent tribes in the 
islands. They speak over fifty diiferent languages. There are 
three entirely different race stocks there. The inhabitants of the 
southern islands are Mohammedans, and are at perpetual war 
with the inhabitants of the principal islands of the north, who 
are Christians. Then there is a vast body of tribes, principally 
wild tribes, who are in a state of low barbarism, without any re- 
lio-ion. No one then thought it conceivable that we should hand 
over to a fraction of one tribe, led by a half-breed adventurer, 
who had raised his own standard, these eight or ten million 
people. 

Nothing remained except to take the islands ourselves, and 
solve the great problem they presented as best we could. We 
took the islands. Among the Commissioners who signed that 
treaty was Senator Gray of Delaware, a most distinguished 
member of the Democratic party, a man identified with the 
Cleveland administration, a learned lawyer, a gentleman of the 
highest integrity, and he went to Paris utterly opposed to taking 
the Philippine Islands ; but you may read his name at the bottom 
of the treaty, and the reason he put it there, as he afterwards 
told the Senate, was that there was nothing else he could do. It 
was the only thing that could be done. 

The President made the treaty, but that did not make it 



12 

law. To make it law, it had to be ratified by the Senate of the 
United States. It takes two thirds to ratify a treaty. The Ee- 
publicans did not have even a majority in the Senate. We had 
forty-three members, and two of them voted against the treaty. 
We had forty-one Kepublican votes for the treaty. There were 
sixty votes for the treaty in all. Where did the other nmeteen 
come from ? They came out of the Democratic-Populist party, 
out of the supporters of Mr. Bryan, and they came there be- 
cause he came to Washington, and urged that they should ratify 
that treaty. (Applause.) 

Now, I am not saying any part of this to avoid responsibility. 
I am only too glad to take the whole responsibility for the Re- 
publican party, for I think it was a great deed, but I want to 
trace out th«iliistory of this event, and show who was concerned 
in it. ITow, one of two things: when Mr. Bryan urged his fol- 
lowers to support the treaty, he either acted like a broad-minded 
patriot in taking the Philippines, or he did it for political ends. 
Either he did it because he thought it was right, or he did it be- 
cause he thought it was wrong. There is no escape from that. 
What does he say himself? He says, "We had to ratify a 
treaty of peace." Very true ; we did have to ratify a treaty of 
peace ; nobody wanted to keep the war open. But a treaty of 
peace can be amended just as well as any other treaty. He has 
shifted his ground to-day. He says he wanted the treaty rati- 
fied so that we could give the Filipinos independence. Worse 
and worse. He has forgotten that a treaty can be amended. 
He has forgotten the amendment offered by Senator Vest, which 
provided that the Philippine clause should be so modified as to 
put the Philippine Islands on precisely the same basis as Cuba, 
which is what they say now they want to have done. That 



13 

amendment provided that Spain should simply relinquish 
sovereignty, and that the islands should pass to us in trust, as 
Cuba passed to us in trust, to be handed back to the people. 
That amendment was offered. Spain would have accepted it. 
Spain would have accepted, I think, almost anything just then ; 
but it certainly would have accepted that. What became of 
Vest's amendment? It was beaten. Beaten by Republican 
votes ? Yes, wisely beaten, I think ; but Republicans were not 
the only ones that voted against the Vest amendment. I find 
on the list the following names : Allen of Nebraska voted 
against it — the next friend of the candidate; Butler of North 
Carolina voted against the Vest amendment. He is chairman 
of the National Committee of the Populists. Harris, also a 
Populist, and a supporter of the mixed ticket; Kyle, also a 
Populist then, now returned to the fold. 

Democrats, Faulkner, Gray, Lindsay of Kentucky, McHenry 
of Louisiana, Morgan of Alabama, Pettus of Alabama, Sullivan 
of Mississippi, and the following Silver Republicans, Mantle of 
Montana (he has come back), Stewart of Nevada (he has come 
back), and Teller, who has not come back. (Laughter.) The 
Republicans did not have a majority in the Senate, and it only 
requires a majority to carry an amendment. It does not require 
a two thirds vote, as in the case of the ratification of a treaty. 
It requires only a majority, and there were several Republicans 
who voted for the Vest amendment. It was defeated by the aid 
of those gentlemen whose names I have read. Therefore, when 
they had their opportunity to amend the treaty, and give inde- 
pendence to the Filipinos by the terms of the treaty, they failed 
to do it. 

No ; the thing was intended to make a political issue, and as 



14 

such we are perfectly ready to meet it, for we did not vote to 
ratify that treaty because we wanted to make or unmake politi- 
cal issues, but because, in the judgment of the Republican party, 
and the Republican President, it was the wise and the right 
thing to do. (Applause.) 

But these islands are going to convert us into an empire ; we 
are going to have an emperor, because we have got the Philip- 
pine Islands. Well, now, emperors do not make themselves; 
they have to have somebody to help them. They cannot do it 
alone. Even a political local emperor like Croker cannot do it 
all alone ; he has to have a pretty stout body of men with him 
in order to do it. A man cannot make himself emperor, or 
Cfesar, or whatever you choose to call it, unless he has an in- 
strument to do it with, and they find that instrument in the 
army of the United States, the regular army of the United 
States, sixty-five thousand men, eighty-four one hundredths of a 
man, and eighty-four one hundredths of a gun to every thousand 
of the American population. If that fraction — eighty-four one 
hundredths — of a soldier is to be the instrument of tyranny, and 
the little Republic of Switzerland has forty-seven soldiers to the 
thousand of her population, and yet is not afraid, I think we 
can say to our Democratic and Populist brothers that, if they are 
really afraid, the Republican party is strong enough to protect 
them from any such tyranny. (Laughter.) We will not allow 
our liberties to be threatened by sixty-five thousand men in the 
Philippines. 

But there is something very much more serious to that mili- 
tary proposition than that charge, which is ridiculous on its face, 
and that is the implication against the soldiers of the United 
States. What is there in all our history to justify such an attack 



15 

as this upon the men who wear the uniform of the United 
States ? Have they ever shown themselves less devoted to the 
freedom of the country and the greatness of the Republic than 
their brethren at home ? After the Civil War there were a mil- 
lion men in arms in this country on the Northern side, veterans 
tried on a hundred fields, the finest army then in the world. 
(Applause.) There was an instrument of tyranny, if you will, 
and there were Democrats in the land where the Knights of the 
Golden Circle flourished who said that Abraham Lincoln 
(applause) meant to make himself a C?esar, and that was the 
reason the country ought to vote against him in 1864. But the 
country did not believe them then, and won't believe them now ; 
and if any man had proposed to those million men in arms that 
they should make an attack on the institutions of the Republic, 
he would have suffered at their hands first of all. That great 
army disappeared silently in the great body of the people and 
became the first citizens and most devoted and loyal sons the 
country has. Is there any reason to suppose that the sons of 
those men, the generation of to-day, are any less devoted than 
their fathers ? I, for one, will not believe it. 

" It is a bad thing," says Mr. Bryan, " to have these soldiers 
idling about." Capron was killed in Cuba " idling about ; " 
Lawton was killed in the Philippines "idling about." They have 
all been " idling ahout " under those tropic skies, defending our 
flag and our honor. " Idling about ! " Was there ever such an 
insult to the uniform of the United States ? Is there any man 
who does not know that those men, Avho risked so much and 
faced so much, are just as devoted and just as loyal to the flag 
which they follow as anybody in the whole country ? We are 
proud of our soldiers who have never failed us. The Republican 



16 

party does not fear them. It has put at the head of its ticket a 
man who earned his straps at Antietam, and they have associated 
with him a man who won his promotion on another hard-fought 
field. We are not afraid of the volunteer soldiers of the Re- 
public, and you and I and all of us would just as lief trust our 
lives to men like Lawton and Capron, and the rest of them, who 
have been standing up for the flag, as we would to some of these 
glib gentlemen who are standing up for office. 

You may think that these are new, these predictions about the 
evils which will flow from expansion. I have here a remon- 
strance which was passed in 1813 by the Legislature of Massa- 
chusetts. There are not so many of these Cassandras in exist- 
ence to-day. The anti-imperialists in these days are very few 
in Massachusetts now. They are vocal, but not numerous. 
But see what they said then. You would think that some of 
these clauses emanated from Kansas City, only they are a good 
deal better written. (Laughter.) 

" The Legislature of Massachusetts, deeply impressed with the 
sufferings of their constituents, and incited by the prospect of 
still greater evils in prospect, feel impelled by a solemn sense of 
duty to lay before the national government their view of the 
public interest, and to express in plainness of form the senti- 
ments of the people of this ancient and extensive commonwealth. 
Were not the territories of the United States sufficiently exten- 
sive before any acquisition of Louisiana, the projected reduction 
of Canada and the seizure of Florida ? Had we not millions 
upon millions of uncultivated wilderness, scarcely explored by 
civilized man? Can these acquisitions be held as conquered 
provinces without powerful standing armies ? And will they 
not, like other infant colonies, serve as perpetual drains upon the 



17 

blood and treasure of these United States ? Or is it seriously 
intended to adopt the dangerous project of forming them into 
new States and admitting them into the Union, without the 
express consent of every member of the original confederacy ? 
Would not such a measure have a direct tendency to destroy the 
obligations of the compact by which alone our Union is main- 
tained ? Or have we to witness the formation of States beyond 
the territorial limits of the United States, and this, too, in opposi- 
tion to the wishes and eiforts, as well as in violation of the rights 
and interests of some of the parties to that compact, and with a 
determination to extend our Republic to regions hitherto unex- 
plored, to be peopled by inhabitants whose habits, language, reli- 
gion and laws are repugnant to the genius of our government?" 

It sounded very dreadful then ; it looks very silly now. Some 
of the utterances we have heard and seen within the last few 
months sound very dreadful now, but they will look very silly 
by and by. 

Danger to the Republic by expansion ? Why, out of the ter- 
ritory that that remonstrance condemned, and which was 
denounced in Congress, out of that territory have arisen nine or 
ten great American States — great, flourishing States — and all of 
that land of Louisiana was taken without the consent of the gov- 
erned. Nobody's consent was asked. Mr. Jefferson bought it 
from Napoleon, and there were fifty thousand white people at the 
mouth of the Mississippi, too. Jefferson governed it by Act of 
Congress, with powers larger than were enjoyed by the Spanish 
governor. To-day I do not think that the people of Iowa, 
Kansas and the rest of these great commonwealths want to go 
away any more than we want to have them go. They seem 
free, they seem contented. 



K 



18 

Danger to the Republic by expansion ? Expanding as the 
laws of growth demand ? No. The life of the Republic was 
never in danger but once. It was in danger for four years when 
the very life of the nation was at stake. Men were not trying 
to expand it then ; they were trying to divide it and make it 
smaller. (Applause.) 

It all comes down to one thing. When you come to discuss 
this question and analyze the opposition, it all grows out of one 
proposition: that we are not able to trust ourselves; that we can- 
not trust ourselves to deal with the Philippine islands, that we 
distrust the good intent of the American people. Imperialism 
and militarism are rubbish, and ought to be sent to the rubbish 
heap. What we ought to do with these islands, how we shall 
govern them, that indeed is a great question of national policy ; 
it is a question which cannot be too much discussed by the 
American people. I am very sorry that it should be other than 
an American question, and if all parties had the same faith in 
the future of the country and the future of the people, and the 
capacity and the courage and the honesty of the people, that we 
have, it would not be a political question at all. (Applause.) 
It ought not to be, for by ratifying that treaty we made those 
islands ours, because a treaty ratified is the supreme law of the 
land. But now the leader of the mixed ticket and his follow- 
ers are making it a question of creating sympathy for Aguinaldo. 
He had attacked the troops of the United States, and the 
authority of the United States in Manila under that treaty was 
as rightful and as righteous as it is here in Philadelphia. The 
President had no choice in the matter. He was put there to 
execute the laws. He followed the conception of duty which 
Washington held when he put down the whisky rebellion in 



19 

this State. He held the conception of duty which Lincoln held 
when he crushed out the rebellion against the United States author- 
ity in eleven States. (Applause). He holds the only conception 
of duty that an American President ought to hold — that he is to 
sustain the laws of the United States and uphold its authority 
wherever attacked ; and it will be an ill day indeed for the 
Republic when we get a President who departs from the teach- 
ings of Washington and Lincoln, and claims that the authority 
of the United States is not to be upheld everywhere and at all 
times. The President did his plain and simple duty. Congress, 
men of all parties, voted to give him the money and the men to 
meet that exigency. He met it. The rebellion has melted away. 
)(^ Robber bands are all that remain. Aguinaldo, the head of it, 

cannot be found ; and most of the members of his cabinet are in 
jail, except those of them that have landed here to be received 
by the anti-imperialists. (Laughter.) 

That war — I say it deliberately — has been maintained and kept 
alive by the encouragement it has received here. Only the other 
day, our soldiers captured the papers of Sandico, who was 
Aguinaldo's Secretary of the Interior w^hen he had one, and 
among them was found a deliberate statement that the orders of 
Aguinaldo were to keep it up until the 6th of November, and 
that if McKinley was elected, they were then to stop. I have 
abundant testimony — I will not weary you by reading it — in letters 
that have come from soldiers out there, private letters and letters 
that have been published in the newspapers all over the country. 
I will read one single letter, which is a specimen of them all, 
from one of the men who is "idling about" in Luzon. 

This letter was written by Lieutenant Ryan, Avho went out 
there in the First Nebraska, from quite near Bryan's home, but 



20 

who is now lieutenant in the Forty-fifth United States Vohm- 
teers. After speaking of the attacks by the natives, he says, " I 
am sorry to say that the strongest attacks are those which come 
from the United States. The insurgents continue fighting be- 
cause certain traitors have, by their speeches and acts, given them 
to understand that if they just hold out a little longer, the next 
Presidential election will bring a change of power and a with- 
drawal of troops. I have been told everywhere by the peaceful 
natives how the insurgent soldiers have robbed their homes, taken 
their clothes and made them work for them ; and I cannot pick 
up an insurgent paper without seeing translations of speeches 
made at home against our government, and it is said that some of 
them were even cheered by our fellow-countrymen. Surely such 
a cheer would be music to a soldier dying on the field of Luzon. 
Here we have a bullet for the enemy in front, and a bayonet 
for those that creep up in the rear; but how can we reach those 
who stab us in the back from home? When the fact is settled 
that the United States will uphold the Commander-in-Chief of 
the Army, then will the war be ended; but just so long as the 
American papers repeat these insurrectionary speeches against 
our Commander, just so long will there be some robber leader 
with a band of thieves around him." 

Now I believe that the first thing to be done in the Philip- 
pine Islands is to restore peace and order. There are a great 
many of these people there who have said this. Our friends are 
attacked, our soldiers fired on, and it seems to me that there is 
but one thing for all Americans now to do, and that is to leave 
politics alone until the fight is ended. If we do not do so, it will 
be the basest betrayal of the friendly Filipinos ever made by a 
great nation. 



21 

I know it is very easy to preach virtue to your opponents, but 
I beg to say that a great many of us have acted on these prin- 
ciples not so very long ago. Mr. Cleveland became involved in 
a serious controversy with England. He sent in his Venezuela 
message, and it looked rather stormy. He was a Democrat, and 
I was as strong a Republican as I knew how to be, and I had no 
love for his administration ; but it seemed to me, when he was en- 
gaged in a controversy with a foreign power, that it was my plain 
duty as an American citizen, occupying a place in the Senate, to 
stand by him, and I did, and the Republicans generally did. It 
was the right thing to do, and I think now it is better to have 
the American flag respected first and then discuss Philippine pol- 
icies afterwards. 

We have heard a great deal about hauling down the flag, and 
the Constitution following the flag, and all that. Where the flag 
has been placed as an act of war and conquest, as it was placed 
in the city of Mexico, or the other day in the city of Pekin, 
everybody knows that it is going to be removed, that the Con- 
stitution did not go with it and won't stay there after it has gone 
But where the United States flag has been raised rightfully over 
territory belonging to it by the laws of the United States and by 
its own laws, it never has been hauled down (applause), and cer- 
tainly it never has been hauled down when it was being fired 
upon. (Applause.) We have written a good many things on that 
flag in our one hundred years, but there are two words that we 
have never written thereon — retreat and surrender (cheers) — and 
we are not going to begin now. 

They pour out denunciations on the President. I look them 
over and I find nothing but these vague attacks : That he ought 
not to have taken the islands; that he has mismanaged the 



X 



22 

islands; that he brought on the rebellion, and so on; but every- 
body knows, who reads the record, that the war was brought on 
by Aguinaldo; that they were plotting against us even before 
they left Hong Kong ; that they were dealing with the Spaniards 
while pretending to be our allies ; that they were preparing to 
attack us, mistaking our kindness for weakness, and that they 
did attack us to their own great loss. Everybody knows these 
facts, and what better policy could be pursued than to maintain 
peace and order, and establish civil government as rapidly as pos- 
sible? We sent there the best possible men to do it, among them 
Judge Taft of Ohio, a man against whose high character and 
ability not one word has ever been said. With him went General 
Wriffht of Tennessee, a Confederate veteran. Men were chosen 
from all parties to make the Commission, and every man who 
went there. Democrat or Republican, and looked the situation in 
the face, saw that there was no other policy to be pursued. 
What more could you have or would you have ? Restore order, 
give them the largest liberty they have ever known, lead them 
along the road to self-government as rapidly as possible, give 
them all the benefits of peace, keep them under the flag of the 
United States. 

Should we bring them within the tariflf ? No ; let us be honest. 
We do not want to bring these ten million Filipinos within 
our tariff, and make them a competing part of our labor. No- 
body means that. We mean to hold them, control them, guide 
them, keep them under the flag, and save them from the anarchy 
which threatens them. 

And what, after all, is Bryan's plan ? He says that first he 
would call Congress together. That is easily done. Then he 
would promise them independence — when? It is all right, 



LofC. 



23 

according to him, to hold the islands and give them the right to 
self-government after a little while — time not fixed. 

But we must go on like honest men and meet the daily prob- 
lems as they arise, and not grasp at the future which no man 
can read. I am not able to say what should be done ultimately 
with the Philippines. No man is wise enough to say to-day 
what is best to do three years hence, or five years hence. We 
must deal with the problems as they arise. The first thing is 
peace and order, the next thing is to give civil government. 
That is our duty to these people. 

Then there is also a duty to ourselves, for I do not propose to 
shirk the material side. These islands are the key to the great 
markets of the East. We want those great markets, and we will 
have them. We make in six months all we can consume at 
home in a year. We made the home market our own by a pro- 
tective tariff. We want our share of the markets of the world ; 
we want an open door, and that door is Manila. Sliall we give 
it up because some one comes along and tells us that we are not 
to be trusted, that we cannot do our duty to that people ? No ; 
the people who struck the shackles from four million slaves will 
not put them on anybody else. 

Why don't they look at home ? Where would they be with- 
out those disfranchised States of the South ? They have all this 
anxiety for the Filipinos, but they are silent about the black 
American citizens. With all his inimitable and unlimited 
powers of conversation, you cannot get Bryan to say a single 
word about the constitutional amendment which disfranchised 
the blacks of the South because they were black. 

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a very great question, and there 
are many sides to it. It is of immense importance to us ; it is of 




24 

immense importance to these people who have come into our 
hands. I believe that the American people can be trusted to 
deal with this great problem. What is more, they are going to 
deal with it. They will make mistakes ; we all make mistakes ; 
there will be errors, there will be stumblings ; but we shall rise 
as we have risen in greater trials, and we shall carry this through 
to a triumphant conclusion. 

The paramount issue ! Every issue is paramount. There are 
many issues, but all of them are alike momentous. Behind the 
so-called paramount issue, and all this phantasm of imperialism 
and militarism, there is free silver. In the country where I 
have been travelling, I never heard a word about imperialism; 
it is all "sixteen to one." And my friends, if Bryan should be 
elected next November, the Philippine Islands would still be 
ours, and silver would be wide awake and alive. It would then 
be a live issue ; it is only dead now in the East. It is wide 
awake in the South and West to-day, and wherever it is, it strikes 
at the great medium of exchange, and it affects the prosperity 
and the well-being of every man ; for change the standard of 
currency in this great country, and you set on foot a panic the 
like of which the world has never seen. (Applause.) 

Bryan also assails the tariff and attacks the Dingley bill. If 
he has a chance to alter that, where will it end? Every industry 
in my State is affected by the tariff, for my State is a great 
manufacturing State, like this. From this attack on the tariff 
all other evils flow, and free silver lurks behind, and not very 
far behind out West, either. If they come, all the prosperity of 
the last four years will go. 

Is it worth while to try an experiment like that ? The train 
is running pretty well now. Perhaps not quite so well as we 



25 

could wish, but still pretty well, much better than it was run- 
ning four years ago. (Applause.) Is it worth while to tear up 
a rail to see what the train will do ? "VVhy not let it alone ? 

I have said that there was no paramount issue. I went all 
through the campaign with this idea, until a few days ago ; but 
now I think there is a paramount issue, and it involves a great 
many things. It involves a great deal more than the Philip- 
pines, more in my judgment than the tariif, more than the silver 
question. It is the question of order and liberty, whether we 
are to turn this government over to the men who preach hatred 
between man and man, who set class against class, capital against 
labor, and labor against capital — men whose only hope is to 
tear down, who assail everything, who never have a word of 
hope. Are we to turn the government over to these men? 

I have seen what these teachings are, but when they once 
break loose, no man can tell what the result will be. It means a 
denial of free speech; it means tyranny of the worst kind; it 
means breeding everything that is most hateful, according to my 
ideas, to American liberty. I do not believe in imperialism as 
they preach it. There is no imperialism, fellow-citizens, in the 
Philippines. There is no danger of empire while the great 
bulwarks of American liberty stand, while we are true to the 
teachings of Washington and Lincoln, and to the Constitution of 
the United States. 

There is but one way to imperialism. There never has been 
but one path, and that path is through disorder, anarchy and 
social chaos. (Applause.) When you set man against man; 
when you preach envy and discontent ; when you pass all your 
time in denunciation, you are paving the way. And it is a way 
that is travelled with great rapidity when once it is opened, and 



26 

it is all false to American ideas. This great country is not going 
to break down now. It has had great troubles in the past, but 
it has come out of them all. There is no use of preaching a gos- 
pel of despair yet to America. America is still young. There 
are many evils, many wrongs ; let us meet them like men and 
correct them. Do not let us whine, or curse, or cry. The gos- 
pel of America is hope, not despair, and the Republican party, 
strong in its faith in the great people of the United States, ap- 
peals now, as it has always appealed, to all that is greatest in its 
past and brightest in its future ; the Republican party appeals 
to hope, and it will not appeal in vain. (Applause.) 

Mr. Daelington, advancing to the front of the platform, 
said : 

Ladies and gentlemen, I am perfectly sure that I voice the 
sentiments of every one in this vast audience when, in the name 
of The Union League of Philadelphia, I express our grateful 
acknowledgments to Senator Lodge for his most able and bril- 
liant address. 



